Category: College Basketball

There's a proposal on the table to change NCAA transfer rules that, if passed, would allow football and men's basketball players to switch schools and remain immediately eligible to play. If you listened to coaches, and former coaches now in the media, bemoan what a tragedy this would be you might think they were discussing…

The human race's greatest fear as a species should be the day when we begin to feel indifference towards one another; lose the very thing that makes us human. For all the horrible, soul shattering things Hurricane Harvey has left in its wake in Houston and around South Texas, once the flooding ends and the…

In the summer of 1990, my older brother, Scott, was attending the Lute Olson Basketball Camp at the University of Arizona. My dad -- a successful high school basketball coach -- was working the same event. I was too young to attend...technically. But in a move predating Emmanuel Akot, I reclassified and participated in my…

Welcome to a very self-referential edition of The Open Man Weekend Q&A! Not to worry: The self-reference isn't a series of recurring inside jokes. There are other outlets that can cover that. No, this brand of self-reference touches on a variety of columns I have written this summer. What's surprising is how organically this opportunity…

Anchorage, Alaska seems an unlikely spot to be rich in college basketball history. And yet, it's there an Arizona basketball team led by Sean Elliott, a one-time Pac-10 career leading scorer and the first Wildcat to have his jersey retired; Steve Kerr, Arizona's second jersey retiree; and coached by Hall of Famer Lute Olson, took…

The great Transfer Epidemic of 2015, and 2016, and 2017, and so on, is always a huge talking point in college basketball. With how some power program coaches handle cutting talent, however, that goes mostly without attention or the hoopla. The latter isn’t nearly as sexy as discuss, as it isn’t nearly as big with…

We are, as a society, too invested in sports. Otherwise even-keeled men and women lose the ability to control emotions or think rationally when it comes to their favorite teams. We know this. We just can’t help it. There’s positive and negatives to this quirk of human nature. We do crazy things and overreact. My…

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. -- Mid-morning, the line for brunch at Bodo’s on Emmett Street stretched out the door, smiling customers casually chatting while waiting for an everything bagel with deli egg. This was just a mile down the road from the Grounds of the University of Virginia, where hours earlier White Nationalists marched with torches and…

The Open Man College Basketball 100 continues. If you missed Part 1, check it out here. Every Thursday until tip-off of the 2017-18 college basketball season, The Open Man is counting down storylines. Part 2 dives into the SEC, top recruiting classes and NCAA Tournament dreamers. 11. SEC: It Just Means More? John Calipari restored…

Today marks 100 days until the tipoff of the 2017-18 college basketball season. If you have made it this far, you deserve a can of Coke and hearty pat on the back, as the offseason is more than halfway complete. To commemorate this milestone in the arduous march back to basketball, The Open Man offers…

It's weird to envision an alternative timeline in which on this fine, August Tuesday, Doug Gottlieb is catching his breath after an exhaustive few weeks scouting talent on the AAU circuit. That's less oxygen being emitted on trashy hot takes, of which sports media has no shortage. Much of it comes from the various Fox…

The Commonwealth of Virginia has a population of more than 8 million, a number that’s steadily climbed for decades and ranks 12th in the United States. There are three metro areas with more than a million residents, five with more than a quarter million and 10 greater than 100,000. The state is home to two…

Immediately following the final session of 2016 Pac-12 football media days, a friend packed into my Toyota Prius and we hit the road for Las Vegas. We're no rookies to the Southern California-to-Las Vegas drive, but this was the first expedition we were making specifically to see rookies. Basketball replaced the usual Sin City M.O.…

The final sequences of the 2016-17 college basketball season featured all five starters on the North Carolina Tar Heels' national championship-winning roster touching the ball. Those five Heels -- Justin Jackson, Kennedy Meeks, Joel Berry II, Theo Pinson and Isaiah Hick -- were all either juniors or seniors. North Carolina winning the 2017 national championship…

NBA draft buzz hovers around the lottery names, which is to be expected. However, team success in the NBA is often the result of unearthing hidden gems from the latter-half of the first round, into the second round. The San Antonio Spurs built around such prospects, drafting Tony Parker No. 28; Manu Ginobili No. 57;…